


Journey to the city of stars

by Paulpercopolis



Category: Fantasy - Fandom, Original Works, occult - Fandom
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 11:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19197664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paulpercopolis/pseuds/Paulpercopolis





	1. Chapter 1

"Kill the beast, wipe away the debt." I repeat to myself, following the tracks with a loaded crossbow in hand. The canopy of trees growing thicker as I went further into the forests of Bal Sotha. "Okay I just need its talon and It'll be fine." A warbling screech echoes through the trees, signaling that the beast's cave is getting closer.  
"Kill the beast, wipe away the debt." I whisper, pushing through the bramble as it scrapes past my leather jacket, scratching into its already distressed surface. Something stirs in the distance and the screech grows closer than ever. I ready one of my bolts and take aim into the clearing ahead, waiting for an opportunity. "Kill the beast..." I rest my finger on the trigger, the only sounds I hear are the winds and fauna of the deep forest and my own anxious heart. "Wipe away the-"  
Just then I sense the winds change and a massive, avianesque figure races through the clearing. My instincts practically pull the trigger for me, piercing into the great beast's wing as it flew by, crashing directly into a cave, slamming through its ancient rock formations as if they were thin icicles formed only days ago. Its screeches of pain echo into the night causing the very earth beneath me to shake in fear. With naive excitement I unsheathe my dagger, cutting through my bush hide and running to the gaping mouth of the cave. But when I reached it, there was no beast. My quarry had fallen into the inky black abyss below. I lit one of the few matches I had and held it to the cave which only served to further confirm my fears before a heavy draft snuffed the light into an exhausted ember. Thinking quickly I scooped up a rock and dropped it into the pit, hearing it knock against a wall once and counting the moments before it hit the floor of the cavern. Must have been forty meters deep, enough to kill a person if they just fell, but what would it do to the beast? Is it dead? Is it safe? The prospect of diving into the cavern with that nasty hellbeast didn't sound like a good idea, but returning to town without its claws seemed like a much more certain kind of death.  
With that thought I tossed my pack down and started cautiously making my way into the bowels of the world. As I fell the darkness threatened to swallow me whole, and all I could do is close my eyes and wait for the floor to meet the wall. The updraft blew hard against my face as I descended, reminding me of the great gales of the northern planes, the freedom I once experienced in my formative years hunting elk for my family in the wintertime, while the cold, reverberating dripping in the cave serve as a grim reminder of things to come. The scraping of my boot against the steep incline of the cave wall came to a sudden halt as I found myself at the bottom of the hole, the soft glow of moonlight hanging overhead. I struck another of my matches and was met with the remains of another poor, unfortunate soul who was much worse at descending cliffs than I who was overcome with cobwebs and dust, ribs broken, flesh decayed and with massive bites taken out. I shudder to imagine what made these marks, but the resourceful part of me noticed something clenched tightly in each hand, in his left was the broken hilt of an ornate silver knife, and the right was a snuffed torch. I touched my match to it and it came to life with bright yellow flames, filling the dank cave with light to reveal several scores more bodies, man and animal alike, all with similar bite marks and parts of their skeletons completely obliterated.  
I took up the torch and waved it around with the intent to find my prey, but all I saw was another dark pit with a trail of dark blood leading down to it with no concern that whatever bit into these beings up here may be further down in there and that every step down leads you closer to the jaws of fate. Shining my light down revealed an even deeper chasm. Just how far does this go? How many drops into antechambers could one place have?  
"Only one way to find out." I whispered to myself before digging my heel into the wall and sliding my way down. As I slowly descended further in a heavy sense of dread filled the air, the darkness seemed to encroach upon the halo of light from my torch. I could feel something constricting around my chest but saw nothing around it. As my boot hit the cave floor again my heart felt fit to burst and my vision was reduced to only a few feet. A great wind blew from deep in the world as I pressed on, pushing, urging, demanding I leave its domain. It was a warning from something ancient, powerful, and angry. I pushed myself forward, as it was the only thing I could do. Returning empty-handed is never an option. The further I went in the more the cave seemed to open up, the subtle sounds of trickling water became grand echoes as the walls stretched further and further away from my sight. Soon I was in a void with no directions, only the ground below my feet. The light was almost gone completely now so I closed my eyes and dropped the torch and pressed further into the wind, hardly caring what happens at the end. A dark, windy room wasn't about to stop me from getting to my prey.  
After a few minutes, hours maybe, of walking I started to feel something else stir within the ceaseless hunger of the darkness. A pale blue glow in the distance about six feet off the cave floor. It's strangely comforting to see light again. However, upon approaching it the light disappeared into another section of the cave, finally catching up with the wall again. I place my hand on the stone cave wall. Cold, solid, firm. No holes in sight. I turn around to see the vast expanse behind me, the torch I dropped either snuffed or simply missing. The sounds of rending gales and running water were now absent, darkness stretching infinitely in every direction as the wall behind me seemed to vanish into the expanding void as well.  
I felt the air in my lungs getting thinner and thinner as if I were drowning on dry land, but I couldn't let it beat me. But... where else was there to go? I closed my eyes and stumbled forward. The soft splash of my boots hitting puddles on the cave floor felt more and more distant each time they reached my ears, but soon they too would be swallowed whole by the void until all I could do was feel my way through this empty cavern as my head started feeling lighter and my blood began to thin out and turn my skin blue. I held my arm out in front of me to check for something, anything and felt... something unexpected. The firm grip of what I could swear was another person's hand pulled me straight down, seeming to pass through the stone and sand as if it were water and air. The last thing I could see before succumbing to the poor atmosphere was a pale blue halo of light, eclipsed by a dark-skinned figure with long ears that came to a point at the top.  
I awoke hours later in a miraculously lit marble room, it was about 10 cubic feet and had no apparent windows or doors. The walls and floor felt eerily smooth as if they were just cut and polished but they lacked the chemical smell that usually came with. I paced in circles without. really thinking about it, just happy to hear the click of my heels against the floor once again. Despite the strange nature of my arrival this cell felt... peaceful. I was here, I was alone, I was alive. Probably.  
Just as I sat down against the wall I heard... no, FELT the voice from before. As if it were speaking not to me, but to my mind.  
"Ah. So you are alive. You really gave us quite the scare." It spoke in a deep, slow tone. Smooth like honey, hanging on every vowel before it broke off into the next. Under normal circumstances this would be terrifying, but my innate ability to feel fear seemed to take leave in this place.  
"What would drive such a fragile creature like yourself this far into the deep darkness?" Just as it finished speaking its form suddenly appeared to me as if a cloth had been lifted from my eyes. Its long, sinewy body towered above me, nearly touching the top of the cube while slouched over, examining me like a curious animal with its puny cyan eyes, they were nearly sealed shut with what seemed like scar tissue, but more vibrant, painted with the colors of a cosmic disaster. Its skin was black as the night sky and it wore no clothes, for it had nothing to hide, aside from its left hand, which was sitting out of view.  
I steel my nerves and stand up straight, the being not flinching or backing away. "I am a hunter. I seek my prey." It stared at me curiously as I felt the walls shift around, pushing me to the center of the room as the lanky beast of a man paced around me in a circle, silently sliding around the room as if being carried by the ever-shifting ground.   
"You're either very brave or VERY lost, young one." the figure closed its eyes and shook its head, moving very slow and jittery like a broken puppet. He seemed... ancient. In many ways.  
"Who are you?" My question seemed to catch it off guard, as if they hadn't thought of themselves in years.  
"My name..." The creature labored in its memories, dusting off a great many cobwebs in search of just one word among a grand library of knowings. "I believe I was once called Valetheron. It was a mantle I took once when I walked on the surface." They only seemed partially confident in this answer, but a rose is a rose.  
For a minute or so the creature lay dormant in thought. I had a great many questions for it, but I could feel a strange tension in it.  
"You're one of few humans to find yourself down here." The creature narrowed its eyes to inspect me once again. "And one of even fewer to be in one piece after. I won't be keeping you here, but I have something to ask of you before you return to the surface." I open my mouth to speak but it interrupted me before I could get a word out. "I know you are in no position to refuse my offer."  
With that, they rose their long, sharp-angled hand and touched one finger to the very center of my forehead. What happened next was a flash of images, both horrid and beautiful, a comet striking the city of Alma, Providence fallen, a great cosmic moth, the blind god walks once more, awesome burning light then... silence. A great reset. All I once knew tilled over like the crops of last season by a cleansing fire. Everything and nothing.  
"Do you understand?" These words fell on my ears and echoed through my skull but I could not find an answer. I carried knowledge I was not equipped to understand. Not yet.  
"Do you understand?" It repeated, snapping me out of my trance.   
"No." I responded frankly.  
"I cannot help you make sense of it, that is something only you can do." The creature took its left hand from behind its back and held it out to me. It was scaly, swollen and mangled and had a steel bolt running through the palm.  
"The surface is waiting for you, hunter." It said with a smile in its voice. I warily went in to shake its strange hand and everything disappeared in a flash of white light. The last thing I could see was its tiny, cyan eyes.  
I awoke to the sound of birds chirping. After clearing my eyes I saw I was back outside the cave whose entrance was sealed tightly by the rock face as if it were never there. The sun shone through the trees, providing warmth to my cold, aching bones.  
As I stood up to head home I felt something fall from my lap, I looked down to see the grisly severed hand and forearm of a young purple-scaled dragon. A bolt of metal piercing directly through the palm, severing a major nerve cluster. My job was finished but an ominous air fell over the forest today as I head back into town.


	2. The Homecoming

The walk back to Bal Sotha was long and quiet. No travelers on the roads, no large fauna, even the rivers seemed to fall silent as I passed. A strange sensation washed over me as I made my way past the town gates, nobody said hello, passing conversations grew dull and stopped completely when I drew near.  
Entering the hunter's guild I heard conversations become more hushed and felt scores of eyes gazing in my direction before I dropped the dragon hand on the desk of the treasurer, swiftly pulling the bolt out and stuffing it in my satchel.  
"As per our agreement this should cover my debts." I stated, sizing up the de facto guild leader. He was a meek old gent, hardly ever seen outside the guild hall or his home right behind it. Normally he was the stoic-retired-adventurer type. Weaving tales of days come past to inspire the younger generation and showing off cool scars he got while hunting dangerous prey. But today he seemed fearful, as if death were staring him in the face.  
"Are you okay?" I asked him, but he just stared down at the hand and back up into my eyes. Instinctively I reached up with my own hand to discover the skin around my eyes was... wrong. Like the thin, leathery membrane that grows over a recent burn. Possibly an infection of some kind from sleeping in the woods with a severed hand.  
"See a doctor. Or possibly a cleric." The guildmaster stammered. "You're in the clear with us." suddenly I felt intensely unwelcome in my own hall, brother hunters and fellow debtors kept their eyes on me as I hurried out of the hall and back to my cottage in the middle of town. I recall keeping a shiny combat knife under my bed just in case a thief picks the wrong door.  
Pulling out the knife I tilted the smooth, polished surface towards myself to see a familiar set of eyes looking back to me. The burns around my eyes were in the shape of two comets on the verge of collision with the bridge of my nose, the tissue had turned a sickly purple, like a bruise that had little flecks of silver floating within as if it were some kind of decorative elixir. My corneas had lost their usual dark brown coloration for an intense cyan. This wasn't an infection.  
I've had my fair share of experience with the diseases and infections in this area and climate and I had absolutely no clue as to how or why this could possibly be happening from a biological standpoint. No colored endodermic parasites were known to exist on the entire island and even fewer would be able to draw melanin out of someone's cornea. This was either something supernatural or something medically undocumented. Either way it was my civic duty to find someone to document this on the off chance it was a disease.  
There are no occultists in Bal Sotha. Its just not something the people here like. All going to the temple would yield was a prayer and a splash of holy water to the face, as per usual. Going to the local medicine man would just have them stuff some herbs in a nightmask and tell me to get some sleep. The city of Marrowhall had a few great scholars and libraries dedicated to the study of aberrations in this world. The unusual and foreign were their specialty. I wrap my head up in a dry cloth in preparation and stuff some spare rations in my hunting pack.  
I had to move fast in case this curse had more intense effects as time passed. The sun hung high in the sky as I set out again on yet another urgent journey, this time into the desert. I have no need for a horse, for my back is strong and my mind is patient.   
"I've been hiking for years through mountains and plains so a short stretch of desert should be easy." I muttered to myself before catching a view down the mesa from the edge of town into a vast sea of evergreen. The world was bigger than just this forest and stronger than I was alone. That point being made, I walked back into town to find the trading company and see if there were any caravans heading that way.  
My experience with caravans so far was limited, I mostly just met them on trails and sold them any game I couldn't carry myself. But I was a crack shot so becoming a merc wouldn't be difficult. Silently slipping through the door to the tavern where the traders tended to meet I felt the atmosphere was a lot lighter now that I was incognito, however I did catch a few glances due to the fact that I was dressed like I was hiding an invisibility spell gone terribly wrong. However it seemed I was in good company, as there were a few shady looking characters in similar garb with glass goggles taking the corner table with a sign in elvish that read "Marrowhall, departing today." and a single missing seat.  
I approached, but didn't sit. I felt I had to impress them so I silently drew my crossbow and motioned to the empty wooden saucer at the end of the table. Without breaking eye contact one of the masked men tossed it up in the air and I took my shot, the bolt going right through the rim and pinning it to the wooden wall behind him. The caravaners looked at each other and nodded, inviting me to have a seat.  
We talked for a while, about ourselves and where we plan to go, what we plan to do. Some of them run this route for a living as merchants, some are just following the work from up north in the plains, one was even a well respected business owner in Marrowhall returning from a short personal leave. But a few of them seemed strangely silent, whats more they never ate or drank. But I just wrote them off as well-fed stoics. Who am I to force them to talk?  
The leader of the caravan spoke up, saying it was nearly time to leave so they all got up and I followed suit as they boarded a nifty-looking sealed wagon. They told me to take one of the side seats and to not mind the smell and to try not to feignt if a strong breeze came your way. As if it could possibly be that bad.  
It was that bad.  
Judging by the smell it was either some really good cheese or some really bad meat. I tried taking a peek behind the flap but its rank vapors made my eyes water as soon as I could crack it open. I looked over to the other caravaners and guards who didn't seemed to be bothered. Maybe you get used to it after a few trips? Either way something about this group struck me as strange but nobody else was going to travel all the way across the forest AND the desert today so taking my chances was worth it.  
The first few days out were uneventful to say the least. No hostile wildlife attacks, no bandits, no impromptu repairs needed. The forest was smooth and kind, offering little resistance to our draught. Nightly I would kill and dress an elk for the party, making note of which ones did and didn't eat. No doubt it was something to be suspicious about but I didn't want to be the one to speak on it, plus the extra hands were good for maintenance.  
Once we got to the desert that was a different story, people kept getting their feet stuck in the soft parts of the dunes, the spokes seemed to be getting worn from the sandblasting, and I can't think of that we'd do in the event of a sandstorm. Spending an hour, much less a whole night in that tent would probably blind me from the fumes. I turned to the cart's driver to see him peeking into the flap of the tent, not seeming too bothered by the strange odor.  
"How do you stand that?" I posed, seeming to catch the driver off guard as he jolted in his seat before turning to me and tilting his head.  
"The stench, I mean. It smells like something died in our cargo fifteen times over." The driver put a hand on his chin, thinking for a moment before looking around, as if to make sure none of the other caravaners were watching us before looking directly at me through his dark goggles and pressing his loose cloth mask down where his nose would usually be to reveal a sort of cavity where the nose would normally be, presumably sealed over by scar tissue. "Oooh! Oh..." It wasn't really the answer I expected but it made sense. Before I could apologize for bringing it up he stopped me, waving his hand as if to say 'Its no big deal.'  
We shared an awkward spell and that was all for now. As the sun fell lower in the sky it painted a lovely pink on the clouds over the west coast and we felt it's warmth slowly creep away into the horizon. I keep my hands close and wonder how the people of Marrowhall deal with this on a nightly basis. I'm sure frost would form on the studs of my gloves if it weren't for the incredibly low moisture of the desert. One of the silent workers stopped the cart at the bottom of a particularly large dune and brought out some firewood and kerosene and set up a roaring bonfire in little to no time flat.  
The moon hovered high above us, shining pale blue light over the desert and turned the desert into a snowy tundra, stagnant and free of trees and wind. The subtle shifts of the desert lulled me to sleep while millions of still fireflies lay sentinel over the world. As I was taking my rest for the night I felt a thin, bony hand on my shoulder.  
"Hey slim, wake up a sec." he whispered, "Have you seen a big red rock around the site? Trust me, its super important." It didn't ring any bells but now that I was awake I felt I had to help in some way. I stood up and had a quick scan around the site which seemed a little more spacious than I last saw it. The dune had sunk and revealed the layer of smooth but weathered sandstone that lay below. It was covered in strange carvings I couldn't recognize and had a small, square hatch in the middle.  
Still being a bit hazy from the slightly jarring awakening I rubbed my eyes and asked "How long has that been there?"  
"Centuries probably. Only been exposed to air for a few hours, though." He paused for a moment, I could sense a sly grin creeping across his shrouded face. "Maybe you could check it out while I comb through the area? Either way we can't move on without it."  
"No dice." I asserted, not wanting to suffer the embarrassment of falling for any obvious backstabbings or traps. "Either you go too or that door stays forgotten and gets buried again."  
"I'm not going in there! There could be scorpion or curses or something." He whispered anxiously, quivering at the thought of getting bad mojo bestowed from some ancient desert demons.  
"Then good night." I told him, cocooning myself back into my sleeping bag, listening to him scuttle about, trying not to wake up anybody else.  
About a half hour passed before most of the camp awoke to a distant scream coming from inside the tunnel. There was a short silence before one of the three vocal caravaners spoke up.  
"Did that idiot lose the gem again?"  
"Yeah." I responded frankly. "He was actin real worried about it a while ago. Is it some kind of heirloom?"  
"No, more of an engine for the rest of our party."  
I looked to one of the still sleeping members and noticed something peculiar about them. No slow movement of the chest, no sudden twitches or kicks, I place my hand over their neck, it was stiff as a board and had no pulse.  
"Don't worry, hes fine. They just need a little... accommodation is all. That gem is enchanted so as long as one of us has it close by they have more control over themselves." another one piped up, as if someone being paralyzed is no big deal.  
"So... are we gonna get him?" I asked.  
"I mean... I recall him asking you to go down there, you being the brave adventurer type." One passively asserted.  
That is a good point. I've survived worse than a little scorpion bite and I'm en route to occultist central so weird mummy curses shouldn't be that big of a problem. Theres not much that couldn't happen in the next few hours that we're not prepared to deal with.   
"Okay, I'll get him. Just don't leave without us."  
"Wouldn't dream of it." They yawned before curling back up into their sleeping bag.  
With that exchange I appointed a new lookout and flung open the hatch, making sure to bring a torch and dagger with me as I descend the steep sandstone steps into a dark cave once again. Trying my best not to let past events deter me from doing the right thing.


	3. The Delve

The walls were clean and smooth, covered in intricate glyphs which were unintelligible to the uneducated eye. Even then it seemed to resemble no languages I've seen before, possible it was just decorative but there's a certain mystique to seeing a sprawling text in an archaic, dead language. The stairs seemed immaculately well kept for how long they've been under a desert. Not a grain of sand or rogue piece of stone. It felt as if every step was the same until I was met with a simply-shaped square room adorned with seemingly fresh paint and a fantastically gilded sarcophagus with the lovingly carved face of what could be an ancient leader or cleric.  
The coffin was surrounded with various jars filled with rare gems and pickled organs, all capped off with the same interesting family seal. Out of curiosity I took a scrap of paper and replicated it with a scrap of charcoal from one of our past bonfires. One thin crescent moon, a five-pointed star, and an eye in the middle. The whole symbol had a real mathematical perfection to it. Symmetry, simplicity, how the parts fit within one another like a little puzzle.  
I stashed the paper in my pocket and looked around for my comrade or his missing gem when I hear a shuffling behind a large seal on the wall, its bold lines were slightly turned and distorted. I lean in close, it sounded like the shoes of a humanoid for sure. Pressing my ear to the seal I gave it two hard knocks, hearing a metallic sort of resonance from behind.  
"H-hello?" A familiar voice echoed back from behind the door.  
"How did you manage this?" I asked him with palpable disappointment. There were no other doors he could have possibly taken.  
"The door closes itself after a minute. I got the rock back, but I wanted to see what else there was in here. There's just a bunch of preserved family members and pets in here so I want out." The voice stammered.  
I shift the stones until I hear a satisfying mechanical pop and the door forcefully swings open, knocking over an ancient carafe of gems and cracking what might have been home to the occupant's liver.  
"Let's just get out of here." I say before being interrupted by a strange moan from within the casket behind me as my masked friend makes a break for the exit, knocking over several other organ jars, shattering a few of them.  
Suddenly as I turned around the muffled moan turned into a powerful scream of rage as a mighty thump came from the coffin in front of me, cracking open the lid and allowing a long-jointed, bony hand to slip through the gap.   
Thinking quickly I took the nearest jar of olden copper coins and crushed the hand while turning tail and running full speed out of there. Coins and pottery shards flew everywhere as I vaulted over the gilded casket and manicly sprinted up the stairs, watching them get progressively more and more ancient as I passed, occasionally slipping on cracked stones and dropping my light as a dead man was shambling at great speeds behind me. My heart was racing at speeds I couldn't quantify in this state when I reached the edge of the ancient staircase I practically jumped out into the chilly air of twilight, readying my crossbow and taking a potshot down the deep shaft before nabbing one of my comrade's longspears and jamming it like a wedge between the hinges to the trapdoor, sealing it shut.  
"Hey, what the fuck." Hissed the watchman, who obviously wasn't privy to the situation at hand.  
"Dead guy. We're leaving."  
"Big deal, its a crypt. Probably scores on scores of them in there."  
"Dead guy that MOVES."   
"Yeah that's usually not a good sign around here." he acknowledged, tossing his pack back onto the cart and blowing a gaudy-looking antique iron trumpet that looked like it had been in multiple wars and sounded like a dying bird, jolting everyone who wasn't awake out of their slumber.  
While everyone else got ready to leave I stood guard, the crisp, dry air blowing through my head wraps while I anxiously eyed the trapdoor. No movements, no sounds, just a mild breeze from the north slowly covering the passage back up. As a serpent would curl back into its lair after a kill. I placed an ear to the door, silence save for the buzzing of a scarab in flight overhead. As the sand overtook the door completely I cautiously took the spear by the handle and yanked it out before heading out with the rest of my caravan.  
We rode in a hazy silence until the sun returned to the sky. I took a good amount of time to study my drawing while the horizon stayed clear, save for the occasional cactus or carrion bird picking clean the bones of an unfortunate camel. The symbols had a certain air of mystery to them, I simply had to look further into them. They seem so familiar, yet so foreign to my mind. This is probably the furthest I've been from home in years. The forest was kind to me, as I was to her. But the desert was a void, free of the gentle embrace of the trees.  
As I tucked the drawing back into my pocket I looked to the cart's driver. It was the same one as last time, one of the men I saw catatonic last night. Something about his movements seemed slightly off, they'd always been that way but I'd hadn't thought much about it until now. He was like a marionette held by invisible strings, moved by the most delicate puppetmaster they still had a non-human quality to them. Far too smooth, too calculated. That was when I noticed that his headwraps were still loose from last night and I could see the smallest bit of the back of his neck. It was pale as a sun-bleached bone and just as thin and porous. Okay, that tears it. I've just gotta ask. What's the worst that could happen, after all?  
"Hey driver?" I asked, and he turned my way smoothly as his hands kept working the reigns. "I don't mean to be rude, but are you a skeleton?"  
He covered his mouth and made a small jolting motion, as if to stifle a laugh with no sounds other than a muffled clicking. Pulling out a weathered pencil from his leather jacket he started to write something down in a leatherbound booklet and handed it to me. It read "I thought you would have caught on earlier than this." For a man with no muscles he had excellent handwriting.  
I handed the booklet back.  
"I dunno its just not a regular occurrence where I'm from. Usually anything undead is ravenously hungry for mortal flesh and blood." I explained, remembering the multitude of vampire clans that the woodsmen used to warn me about in Bal Sotha.  
He jotted something down and held the page out to me "You and I are from very different places." A simple, but very telling way of putting things.   
"Did someone do this to you? Is this caravan cursed or something?" before I could finish he held up his hand in front of me for a quick moment before writing something else.   
"Undeath is my choice, I signed up to continue my life purely because I enjoyed it. Loss of life is but a minor setback to me, as long as I can continue my work I am satisfied."  
I simply nodded and carried on, standing sentry for my skeleton crew.  
Hours later over the horizon was a strange sight, a tall, beige stone castle, flanked on each side with small cottages and patches of fertile land where wild grasses and fresh fruit trees grew, providing shade as we passed by, watching farmers prune and shear their groves of strange red bulbous fruits. As we rode past one I plucked it off the tree and pulled my head wraps up a little to bite into its soft, white flesh. It was a rather sweet and juicy thing, but the skin was rough and bitter. Maybe I'm supposed to peel it?  
As we strode through the main gates we got to watch the hustle and bustle of the closest thing to a big city you could find around here, criers stood on street corners bragging about how their boss makes the strongest steel or bakes the freshest bread while the crowded streets flowed smoothly with carts and pedestrians like water carving a valley through the mountains of shops, libraries, and homes of Marrowhall. Many, if not all the denizens of this place had similar coverings to me and my caravan crew to protect themselves from the scorching sun, some wore more extravagant and vibrant headdresses as some type of mark of their social stature.  
As we brought the wagon into the fenced lot for the trading depot I was given my payment, 20 silver pieces. It was enough to eat for a few weeks while I was here but it was a suspiciously handsome reward for a job so simple as low-risk mercenary work. I took my money and resolved to investigate later as I had more pressing issues to attend to than valuable, smelly cargo.  
Tracing my way back through the crowded cobblestone streets I made my way to one of about three libraries in this surprisingly large town and peeked my head inside to see it nearly deserted, save for a singular, well dressed spectacled clerk behind the returns desk. She wore a vibrant headcloth that was loosely tied under the chin along with a more casual, earthy colored shawl. Hearing the door open she looked up from sorting her call cards to smile and wave in my direction before going promptly back to work. The cabinet which the cards were kept dwarfed her in size which wasn't easy to do because she couldn't have been less than six feet even. The cabinet behind her was dwarfed in return by the sheer size and height of the meticulously organized floor to ceiling bookshelves about five feet behind like a shabby little shack built right up next to a grandiose regency watchtower.  
"What'll you be lookin' for today?" she piped up with a cheery voice hidden under a slight accent.  
"I'm looking for something on how to remove eye-related curses."  
"Beholder related?"  
"Not sure."  
"Burnt-in?" she immediately responded.  
She continued about a minute like this, listing off terms I frankly just either didn't know or just wasn't familiar with how they pertained to my situation.  
I interjected: "Look, I'm a hunter from the great plateau region. I have no idea what any of these academic-type terms mean so could I just like... show it to you and see how it is?"   
She blinked in confusion for a quick moment before shaking the moment off and putting on a pair of silver-framed spectacles.  
"Alrighty then, lets have a look-see." she sighed, obviously more skilled with researching than doing medical diagnoses.  
As I removed my headwraps and tinted lenses she seemed to back up in her chair and grimace in disgust.  
"Oh, goodness that's... raw." She beckoned me closer and I knelt down, putting my chin in her hand as she turned my head around, inspecting it as if it were a rare gem or a fresh bundle of spring lettuce. "How long has it been like this? Does it hurt?" She struck a match and waved it in front of my eyes, causing the tiny metallic shards within to shine like a mirror ball.  
"Wh- Where did you get this... injury?" She stammered, seemingly paralyzed with dread while I lifted my head up and the match fizzled out.  
"Well, in order, about a week ago, not really, if anything its numbed to the point I can hardly blink, and if my memories are actually memories, rather than strange cave gas hallucinations... It was "bestowed" upon me, along with a few strange visions by a lanky elf named Valetheron" I said that last part jokingly, but the look on her face tells me that maybe... just maybe... maybe I had something to worry about.  
"You... haven't crossed paths with any undead in the desert, have you?"


	4. Gift of Sight

After telling my anecdote to the clerk she sat there pensively. Either lost in her thoughts or grappling with belief before stoically lifting herself from her seat and going to the cabinet full of calling cards, flipping through the drawers and pulling out a card and handing it to me.  
"Bring me this book. I need to review it for a moment." she dictated solemnly.  
I followed it to the section 228 VAL, some old temple doctrines, one with a beautifully gilded spine and a matching number below it tucked between the binding and pages. Luckily it wasn't one of the majority of tomes that were far out of my reach so I pulled it from its place, releasing a thick cloud of dust with it. I gave it a good brush-off with my hand and set it on the counter while the clerk eagerly cracked it open and started flipping through the pages as if she knew it by heart but was looking for a specific page.  
I don't know how it happened, but I put my hand down on the pages at just the right time, as if my arm moved without my permission. Brushing the pages aside I saw a familiar symbol. The moon, the star, the eyes, it was the seal from the crypt. Only this time it felt as if the eyes were turned to me, staring, weighing my actions.  
"So you're familiar with them?" she quizzed, eyes now looking my way with the same judgemental energy. I took my drawing out of my pocket and placed it next to the seal in the book, it was a perfect match, eeriely so, even down to the slight shakey imperfections that came with doing such a thing away from a desk, as if the book was placed into the world the moment I decided to copy that symbol.  
"Familiar indeed." she stated, lifting the book up onto the counter and turning it my way.  
"Its from the family and descendants of Alma herself, who are said to, and I quote: Walk the earth during the end of forward time." she continued flipping through the pages. "Its some old prophecy about the end of the second era. Some people write them off as heresy since usually the temple has them 'disappear' but you're the first one in ages to actually turn up so-"  
"Why are you telling me all this?" I interrupted.  
"Because..." She closed the book. "If you truly are the guy this book is talking about then I'd rather not get in the way of history being made. I mean you've got the star-scar for it but thats pretty easily replicated. People might not be too accepting of a new era. Its a new, terrifying prospect..." she stopped herself mid-thought, bringing the book back down to her desk. "Do you mind if I ask your name?"  
I attempted to introduce myself but nothing came out, I simply stood there, unable to say it. I dug deep into my mind, had anybody said it in the past few days? Had I even said it?

Is it even known to me?

I was paralyzed with a sense of dread and grief. Am I going insane? Is this simply the effect of the curse? Had...

Had it always been like this?

In shock I hobbled over to one of the wooden reading chairs and took a rest to collect myself, close my eyes, peacefully think, it was so still I could feel the stinging brush of the cold, metal flakes floating in the thin cavities around my eyes, constantly flowing like a river, but serving an opposite purpose to the life giving waters of a mountain spring.  
In a flash I saw a vision once again, a tall, lithe woman wearing a boar skull for a mask. She seemed to be addressing me, but I couldn't hear her. She seemed kind and patient, but I could feel something dark within her, a rotten, still-beating heart in her chest and a echoing scream from below as the floor gave out, flinging both me and the woman into a vast abyss.  
I open my eyes with a jolt to see nothing had changed, the clerk was still looking at me, expecting an answer.  
"I... can't recall." I stammered.  
She tilted her head in disbelief.  
"You don't remember?"  
"It's as if I... suddenly came to be last week, in the middle of the woods. Anything prior is just... blank."  
She nodded. I wrapped my face back up and rose to my feet, taking the scrap of paper back and making a quick sketch of the person from my visions. In an almost trance-like state I filled out her every detail, from the cracked tusk on her mask to the seal of Alma on the end of her flowing tapistryesque robes. As I handed the clerk the sketch of the person her skin reddened in confusion and shock.  
"Okay, I'm giving you a pass since you don't seem like someone who really does come from absolutely nowhere." As she said this she tore my sketch into quarters and stuffed it into a nearby vase. "Making depictions of lady Alma is... not something you're supposed to do. Under any circumstance. In any medium."  
"Lady Alma? I thought Alma was a city."   
She choked on her words and pinched the bridge of her nose, muttering. "I suppose this is what librarians are for but... wow..." the clerk took a moment to collect herself before calmly explaining that Alma is founded by, governed by, and named after the supposed daughter of a god named, imagine that: Alma. According to legend she just showed up in the middle of nowhere on a volcano and the city started growing around her.  
I pondered this for a spell, she just appeared like that? It makes you wonder...  
"Do you think I could be from a god too?" I asked?  
"Please leave." she asserted firmly.  
Getting up to walk out I felt a sharp pain in my boot, like stepping on a small nail or thumbtack. I slipped off my shoe for a moment and a sizable, brilliant cut ruby fell out. Not only am I a blasphemy in existing, I'm also a grave robber. How lovely.  
I pocketed the gem as I walked out. I suddenly had a new, further destination. If a meeting with Alma was at hand I may as well get it over with. Only issue was I wasn't exactly sure where it was and I just got kicked out of the library, so I'm basically on my own.  
The streets were a lot less packed than they were previously, but still had a decent amount of foot traffic. Not sure where exactly to go I just picked a street and started walking, hoping I'd find what I was looking for by chance as I scanned the signposts hanging off the side of most of the buildings. There were numerous curio shops and artisanal workshops, plenty of pubs and eateries as well. The further I walked the businesses thinned out, slowly turning to warehouses and homes, all on an increasing steep incline before I was met with a tall, wooden gate. There were no guards and it was cracked open so I simply invited myself in to find a lush, verdant garden with short stone pillars that had small, medicinal herbs growing from the cracks in the masonry. Drawing close to one of them I could hear an echoing trickle of water from within, nourishing the roots of the little plants.  
I put my pack down by a bench and had a seat, though it was hot and dry out it was also peaceful, the buzz of a shiny insect passed my ear and I closed my eyes. The peace seemed to lift a weight from my chest as I could feel my spirit fly upward, leaving my body behind by a silver cord. I floated up further and further as the cord grew longer and longer, feeling as if I could leave myself behind to explore the stars. Marrowhall was a puny, gray-green jewel among the cold, barren desert. I looked north to see home, or what I once thought was home, but is simply ground zero for my planted memories. Further, yet further, the cord started thinning into a shimmering thread as I passed through the heat and moisture of a desert cloud and saw the entirety of the islands where I lived. Marrowhall and Bal Sotha were but tiny specks in the grand scheme of things.  
Suddenly I felt my attention being drawn to a black cloud on an island east of my own, it was of comparable size and the cloud seemed big enough to swallow at least one third of it. As if my attention was the very thing that moved me I felt myself take a dive into the ash storm, wind burning my face. Just as I descended into the storm I felt a sharp pull on my chest, pulling me back at blinding, burning speeds to the gardens and back to my body. I awoke to feel a hand on my shoulder once again, but it was an unfamiliar figure.  
They were dressed in long, black robes endowed with white runes and knot patterns, their face was masked with the skull of a doe, hood pulled over the stubby antlers. I looked around, the gate was now closed as the dark, skull faced figure hovered over me in both a metaphorical and physical sense before floating to the unoccupied side of the bench and taking a seat next to me. They spoke in a way much like how the being in the cave did, but in a much more soft, understanding tone.  
"Good day, my child. What brings you to the gardens of Marrowhall?" Their words seemed to echo as they passed through the mask of bone and forced their way directly into my own skull. It felt paradoxically plesant, yet unpleasant at the same time.  
"Oh my, my apologies." They said, this time with the sound of an ancient, raspy voice. "The deep language can be difficult to listen to for those who do not speak it themselves." I could feel the energy of a warm smile under the mask. "You seem to have caught my guards between their shifts, usually the gates are locked but I'm not one to turn away guests." they remarked while taking a kettle from under their robe and placing it in the air, as if setting it on an invisible hook and lighting a floating, blue ember underneath. "Care for tea?" I nodded, still somewhat shaken from my magical journey through the skies.  
They reached to one of the pillars and it rotated at their command, grinding rocks upon rocks until it reached the frond they were looking for and plucked it, taking a few different, exotic smelling herbs and just tossing them into the pot whole as they were.   
This was as good a time as any for questions "Do you know the quickest way to get to Alma?" I inquired.  
They turned to me and tilted their head back a little, as if to examine me. "Now why would one wish to go there? Nothing but burning clouds and deadly diseases in that city, and so uncreatively named as well."  
"I wish to have an audience with her." I said. The masked figure tilted their head in confusion.  
"You?"  
I looked behind me so see who they were regarding, but only saw the lush foliage covered walls.  
"Me?"  
"No, no, not like that... You mean to say that you, a commoner with no apparent background wish to see the Lady Alma? Why?"  
I looked away from the figure and thought of the question. Any true answer would make me seem like a zealot or a dissident. I had to think of something quickly.  
"I... am seeking to be a minister." I stated simply. "I wish to receive her blessing before passing her word through my hometown." A pretty solid lie, I think.  
"I am much wiser than you think, you carry too much to be a monk of Aztera. Try again." I could hear the sly smile in their voice.  
"I'm a hunter who wishes to partake in the wild hunt and I will happen to be in the area when it happens."  
"Your kit supports this, however there are no game animals in Alma, so wild hunts do not happen. One last try."  
Well what's the harm in telling the truth to one other person? What could they possibly do, kindly ask me to leave again?  
"During a fateful encounter last week I received a star-scar in a cave far under Bal Sotha. If legends are to be believed that makes me a likely candidate for a prophecy to end the era and... I wish to receive judgement." I felt a weight lift from my chest, lies are not something I manage well and it felt good having nothing to hide from this strange individual.  
The cloaked man tilted their nose up at me, before they could respond the kettle began to whistle and the flame was snuffed like a candle caught in the wind. Their hands produced two wide mouthed bone china cups.  
"Do you take honey or cream?" They asked, I took just the honey and was handed a steaming cup of woody smelling drink. We sat in silence for a calm minute, letting the herbal drink soothe our nerves and the buzz of the garden's insects calm our minds.  
"Would you mind removing your mask for me?" They requested, I obliged, only pulling it up enough to let them see the "star-scar" as people have taken to calling it. In turn the figure removed their own mask, not revealing much behind it but two feigntly glowing pale-green eyes which pulled close to inspect mine. Their face seemed... unknowable, like my eyes were not ready to see it, so they just showed to me two beady dots in an endless void of a hood.  
"You... remind me of someone I once knew. In a far-off time from now. A poet, if I was to recall." They mused, I felt as if I could see a mouth moving in the darkness. "If it truly is you, you have been missed." As if a cloud were clearing from the skies I finally could see their face, it was gaunt and rotten, without lips or a nose like a long-forgotten hero's skull laid to rest in a distant cave. "I'm sure you have questions, Valetheron. And so it falls on me to provide answers."


	5. Remember Me?

We sat in a still silence within the viscount's luxurious reading room, the windows were barred over with ancient gilded cutouts and the floor was covered in plush carpets, no doubt from the other side of the world. The viscount himself sat in a tall-backed armchair, sipping spiced wine from a tall, crystal flute as he thought to himself.  
"So you don't recognize me?" He said for about the fourth time this hour, his dry, leathery face contorting further and further into a deep frown, then to a disappointed scowl.  
"I see... Well if you really wish to visit her I'll do what I can to prepare you. Just know she hasn't been ...well, lately."  
"What do you mean?" I asked.  
"Centuries ago, the "walking gods" as some people called us were a bit of a tightly-knit group. We visited each other on the weekly. But then weeks became months, months became years, years bled into decades and not so much as a letter from her radiance." he mocked, letting his dramatic upsetness be evident in his voice. "Just to know that she lives would be worth my favor, and trust me I pay back my debts twofold. No expense is too great."  
I narrowed my eyes, still able to see him, though blurry and tinted through my upper cheeks and eyelids.  
"What would cause a demigoddess to go silent?" I pondered. "If all else fails she could teleport out, seek you for help."  
"One would think, but even we star-mantling sons of divines can't really teleport. Move quickly, yes. Fly, yes. Instantly transmit ones physical form to another place? Apparently too much responsibility according to our fathers."   
He crossed his legs and leaned back, pouring the rest of the glass down his gullet. He didn't seem to have a tongue so I could only guess this was all for theatrics. His scowl faded and his small, patient smile returned.  
"Now tell me, my child. Whereabouts did you get that scar? Think hard about your answer, for it is of high importance to me." He spun around playfully in his chair, reclining back even more and tossing his glass to the floor not even watching it shatter as it hit the cold, gray stone.  
"As I recall it it happened somewhere below Bal Sotha." I began, only to be swiftly interrupted.  
"There are many things below that little hamlet. It was built on quite a tall cliff, after all."  
"Well it was directly south at the base of said cliff. In a strange cave." I continued.  
This seemed to grab his attention unlike anything I'd said before, he calmly raised an eyebrow and regarded me with his head in his hands.  
"And... what made this cave strange?" His eyes were wide open, seeming to stare daggers into me, despite looking like nothing more than green candle flames.  
"Well, for a start it was much too steep to be typical for the region, but outliers happen. But, as I made my way in I found a fair amount of corpses." I paused but the viscount motioned for me to go on, uncrossing his legs and taking on a very interested but serious expression. "From what i could gather it was either an old tomb or a wild animal's den. They seemed very ancient and there were no reports of missing persons in recent memory so I just took a torch from one of them and went deeper in."  
"What? Why would you... Are you... Are you well in the head?" he stammered.  
"I like to think I am just more... determined than others. I was chasing the trail of a dragon that had been killing goats and such in the area." My host closed his eyes and nodded while pinching his bridge in annoyance, asking me to continue. "Going deeper in I got swallowed by the dark, lost in some large, reflective cavern, the air felt very thin there and I passed out." He covered his eyes with his leathery, skeletal hand.  
"Let me guess, some mountain of a dark elf dragged you out of there with his mind powers?" he interjected, pressing a finger on each temple.  
"No, he used his hands." I responded, accidentally goading out a confused and upset look from the gaunt old man.  
"I... genuinely can't tell if you're being serious or you're just really well read and messing with me. Either way if I still had organs I'd be having a heart attack." He muttered, rubbing what little form he had left to his temples.  
The viscount waved his hand and suddenly the elk mask he had on earlier floated off the wall to him and he pressed it back into his face with a metallic sounding click as a set of straps wound themselves around the back of his head. Barely moving the rest of his body he went back to his 'I'm listening' pose and motioned for me to keep going.  
"I woke up some time later in a white room with... said mountain of an elf, he had a scar that looked much like the one I have now, but much more widespread. He spoke without speaking like how you introduced yourself and moved without walking as if skidding on ice." He held up one hand and stood up for a moment, seeming to blink in and out of sight, getting slightly closer every time he flashed back in, without so much as disturbing the wrinkles in his clothes.  
"Much like that, yes?"  
"Exactly like that, yes." I cleared my throat and he blinked back into his chair, listening closely as an inquisitor would to their prisoner. "I then had... visions. A comet headed for what I somehow understood to be Alma, A big moth, among other things, these visions haven't stopped either. Even on the way here I-"  
"Oh my god you're not lying." he dropped his hands, I saw nothing through his mask but could hear the realization in his voice. He took a deep breath to try and compose himself. "Have you... told anyone else about these visions?" he questioned nervously. I shook my head and he motioned like he was wiping sweat off his forehead. I just don't buy that this guy has functioning sweat glands, though. "You're... here at a bad time, I'm afraid but I'm sure we can make this work. After all its only been... what, only a few hundred years since the real Valetheron just up and disappeared." He pinched the bridge of his mask's nose.  
"If hes gone, how did I see him?"  
"Well hes not GONE gone. Hes become something abstract if nothing else. Valetheron is but a word on a page now. One day he and his whole city just disappeared, that's why Bal Sotha was built, by the way."  
"Yes, but how did I SEE him?" I reiterated.  
"I don't know, I'm not a thaumaturge. Figure it out yourself."  
He got up and motioned for me to follow him as we went to a tall spiraling staircase, the only vision we had for us both was an occasional wall sconce. After a few minutes of walking my legs started getting tired, after about an hour I felt my breath getting shorter. All the while the sconces grew further and further apart, then disappear altogether.  
"Do try to keep up, hunter. Its only a little further." He said, completely circumventing the stairs by floating slightly above them.  
After a few more minutes of walking up steep stairs in near total darkness we both made it to the top of a tower with a full balcony in all directions.  
"Here there's no chance of us being listened to, already I fear I've said too much down there. You're in great danger, Valeth- Whoever you are. You bear the mark of a fallen angel." He said, removing his bone mask and placing it on the railing so I could see his real face. Suddenly something clicked, I could see past all the rot and age to know who he really was.  
I saw myself in a time long past, defending a great white tower against legions of undead, towering monstrosities, and scores among scores of ghoulishly deformed men, all led by a white-eyed void hovering over them, blotting out the sun like a spilled inkwell. I looked to my left and saw him again, much younger, more radiant and strong, wielding a magnificent glowing blade in his hand, gilded ageis affixed to his forearm.  
To my right, I saw her again. I don't know how I could tell it was her but even through her full plate armor and helm I could sense her. I felt a flutter in my chest as i looked down to see my hand gripped firmly around her gauntlet. I blinked and suddenly it was over, just as it had began.  
"Ferris?" The name echoed on my lips as the centuries old lich turned to me and smiled warmly then to the sea to the east.  
"If you're in there, Valetheron... Know not a day has gone by where I didn't think of you, old friend."


	6. Chapter 6

We sat and talked on the balcony for a while after, he filled me in on what's been happening the past few centuries, like talking to an old friend I haven't seen in years. But, every now and then I caught his eyes wandering to the great ash storm to the east. He was trying to be subtle about it but to be blunt, he had the subtlety of a naval cannon.  
"Is something wrong, Count?" I asked, watching him fold his skeletal arms and lean onto the stone railings, his wistful smile just visible under his mask.  
"Neither of us know if you're somehow the genuine article of old Valeth. I'm comfortable not knowing. There's some things in life I wish I knew less of, but I don't think she'll feel the same way." he closed his eyes and lowered his head. "Foresight seems to be your thing, hunter. Perhaps she'll come to accept you."  
I didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise so I just nodded in silence, watching the clouds of ash roll south into the crashing waves, staining the seas and shores with light gray powder. A fleet of ships headed from a small island south of them deftly navigated around them, carrying so many fog lights it was as if they had lighthouses sewn to their backs. The wind from up here was nearly deafening, but I didn't feel it move me at all.  
"I don't want her to know I sent you so you're going to need to get to Frostharbour and charter a ship from there." He said, reaching around his neck and unhooking a necklace, a red stone teardrop charm on an aged silvery chain. He slipped the charm into my pocket and placed his hand on my shoulder in a reassuring, almost fatherly way. The count closed his eyes and hung his head low. "A trade route runs that way, check in with the caravaner's hall. They usually don't run this time of year but I'm sure if you're anything like the old Valeth you'll figure something out." He gave a smile and turned to me. "I know it may not mean much, but I'm sorry for what's going to happen."  
Suddenly, I began to feel numb in my limbs, spreading quickly through my whole body like a flash flood. The coattails of the count's outfit began to float up like he were falling as his face was engulfed in a blinding green light. I don't even recall turning away or closing my eyes but next thing I knew I found myself lounging high in a tree, feeling like I had just woke up from a fifteen hour nap in the middle of the afternoon.  
There was a chill in the air as the sun was setting over the desert, a gentle gust of wind rustled the branches around me and I felt as if I was back home. Even without specific memories, the sentimental beauty of the woods was too strong to resist. I heard a gentle snap above me as one if its red teardrop fruits fell into my lap, fresh and crisp like a autumn night. I bit into it, and it tasted sweet like honey and had the pleasing, crunchy texture of a light snowfall.  
I got back on my feet and descended from my perch, feeling renewed and refreshed. For some reason things felt more clear in spite of how little I still knew about the path ahead of me. My headwraps were on tightly as I briskly strolled through the empty streets, lit only by the occasional brazier. The atmosphere felt familiar. I felt like a champion of darkness and uncertainty, finally able to embrace their element.  
Taking a turn and heading into the caravaner's tavern of choice I noticed it felt a lot more lively than the one back home, the ceiling was much higher and the walls were decorated with lovely oil paintings with revelers and drunks at every table. The music of a talented violinist echoed through the room providing an atmosphere of mirth and merriment. Not long after I arrived I noticed someone in a corner booth waving at me, rust-stained pugilist's tape covering their hand.  
I weaved through the crowd, taking care not to push or shove and peered over the heads of a few patrons to see the comparatively plain beige headwraps of the caravan I came into town with. There was room for one more and he was waving for me to join them.  
I had a seat and he passed me one of the drinks the more hollow ones had by them and slung an arm around my shoulder, breath smelling feigntly of summery fruits and fiery alcohol. "Heeeey, buddy. Small town, ain't it?" he managed to say as the person next to him pulled him off.  
"I suppose it is." I said, taking a sip of the frothy, fruity liquor. "You guys come here often?"  
"Only when we're in town." Piped someone from across the table. I recognized them as the one who almost ditched me in a rapidly deteriorating crypt. "How about you? You seem to be a bit of a withdrawn sort, tell us a little about yourself."  
I gazed to the side, then into my drink, no doubt creating a somewhat awkward silence between us. They all looked to each other, then to me, half expecting an answer half realizing they might have struck a nerve.  
"I'm... trying to figure something out." I explained. One of them nodded and the others shrugged off my strangely somber comment. After a brief pause I broke the silence and asked them if any of them knew any caravans leaving for Frostharbour soon.  
They looked at one another, whispering among themselves, shaking their heads and the mute ones using some strange code they tapped out with their hands to speak.  
"What business you got in that little sailor town?" The one across the table asked, folding his arms on the table and leaning into them.  
"I've been told there will be a ship waiting there to take me east to Alma." They narrowed their eyes at me suspiciously, probably trying to gauge if I'm serious or not.  
"Who's ship are you going to be on, exactly? There's not many of them going through that ghost town. Much less public passenger vessels."  
"I... don't know yet. I've just got it on good authority that one will be waiting for me." I took the little teardrop charm from my pocket and set it on the table, hand firmly wrapped in it's chain. Apparently they were familiar with it because the one in possession of the necromancy stone took it in his hand, rubbing his thumb slowly over the surface, leaving a streak of blue that disappeared like a puddle in the summer sun just as quickly as he had put it there.  
"Wow. You're full of surprises, aren't you?" he set the charm down and crossed his arms pensively before speaking up. "Okay, I'll take you, personally. There's not much to be seen on that road and that ghost town only gets one caravan a month because there's er... two people or so that live there."  
"Just like that?" I asked.  
"Don't make me reconsider, kid. You could just as easily walk your way there." he rolled the red teardrop across the table back to me. "I'm doing this because the family wouldn't give away an heirloom like that to someone they didn't trust and I honestly don't think you're sneaky enough to steal that." I stuffed the charm into my pocket, nodding confidently.  
With that die cast, I downed my drink and we all talked at great lengths about our aspirations, our dreams, about what our futures may hold. As well as a few other oddball topics like personal reasonings as to why you never see baby crows. His theory was that they're dark replicas of actual birds and they just hatch that way.  
Just a few hours in we started to see streaks of dim yellow sunlight peeking through the windows eastward. Looking to the tall, mechanical timepiece behind the bar I saw that it was only just past midnight. In minutes the streaks got brighter and brighter, striping the floors with gold.  
"Morning already?" he slurred. "That felt faster than last time."  
One by one the patrons began to trickle outside to see what was happening until the street's walkways were once again flooded with people, but instead of the raging rapids I arrived to initially it was a placid lake, all eyes pointed to the golden glow in the eastern sky that created an unnatural dawn. Some confused, some still with awe.  
Face pressed to the glass I saw it, the comet from my dreams. My time was running short. I turned back to my masked comrades who were either resting their head on the table or watching the ordeal from their seats, seemingly not worried about the hubbub concerning a golden comet showing up out of nowhere.  
I grabbed the one who offered to guide me by the sleeve. Practically dragging him out of his seat.  
"We need to go. Now."  
He stumbled behind me for a moment until we were both in the street, the stars were barely visible among all the light pollution. After taking a moment to get his bearings he led us to the stable and hooked up his animal to a smaller, personal carriage.   
Not wanting to wait any longer I jumped in and grabbed the reigns, letting my guide hurriedly dart up into the passenger seat as we raced out and into the cobbled streets of Marrowhall, catching many eyes as we sped by, pulled by an odd, scaly creature similar to a giant lizard.  
Nobody bothered to pursue us and before we knew it the city was just a shadowy mound on the skyline, then a puny eclipse of what it was up close. It seemed like a nice town but I'd rather blaze headfirst into destiny than just watch as a comet crushed...  
Who is she?


	7. Frostharbour

The sun rose low in the sky, emanating streaks of light through the clouds as we headed east. It was just a few degrees off from being eclipsed by the golden comet that was slowly approaching. The desert was growing restless around us. The path ahead was clear, but it was spacious, long, and barren save for the occasional flapjack cactus or desert bug.  
"What was that all about back there?" came a voice from the back seat I may have remembered was with me had he not taken a snooze as soon as we got past the city walls.  
"I don't know what you mean." I responded, as innocently and inconspicuously as a terrible liar.  
"You started freaking out as soon as Zuriel's star appeared. Like its not just something that happens every twelve years."  
This unfolded like an origami star with a question on each step so I naturally started with the biggest one I could think of.  
"Zuri-who?"  
This spawned an odd silence between us, looking back I saw him, goggles pulled up to his forehead by the nosepiece so he could show me his look of genuine disbelief. Not the usual 'Why would you tell me exactly when and how I will die?' brand, though. This was more of a 'Really? Do you live under a rock?' type of look.  
After receiving this look for a quiet, awkward ten or twelve seconds I asked again, "Look, I'm obviously missing something. Please enlighten me."  
He snapped his goggles back on and stuck one hand into the breast of his coat, producing a small, leatherbound book with a white gem insignia on the front cover. It seemed bland and unremarkable on the outside but the insignia seemed to carry some type of spiritual weight.  
"Usually I'm not one to proselytize to people so keep in mind that this is all for your information." he flipped it open and started reading, "In the beginning the world was but a smooth, round sphere, motionless and cold in the vast void that contained it. Aztera gave it motion." he flipped through his book hurriedly "All the other local chapters have their own divine to worship and they all had something to contribute like Oxenos tearing valleys into the landscape and Morihaus pouring the oceans from her vast carafe." He clapped it back shut and stuffed it back in his coat. "Anyway that's the abridged version, minus all the saint stories and tales of priest and prophet miracles. If you're really interested in knowing more you'd be best off speaking to an actual orator."  
I nodded, only really half paying attention as I was being careful not to flatten any cacti or get stuck in any pits.  
"So, why's this guy got a comet named after him?" I asked, turning back once the road was clearer.  
"I... Hadn't thought about it before. All I know is it hasn't been trouble in the... probably thousands of years its been spiraling around here. When you freaked out over some space cluster I figured there was a reason for it."  
I thought for a good while, would it be wise to tell him about my visions? About Alma and the end of days? Even if he didn't smite me for being a heretic there's still a chance he'd tell the temple. Even if he didn't seek to punish me I wouldn't want to bear news this bad upon an unwitting mind.  
"I'm... an astronomer. Alma looks like the best place to see it up close."  
"Right."  
For both our sakes I've decided to believe he's none the wiser.  
A few more miles in, still hardly anything in the barren desert until about midday. Then was when we happened across a sandstone hatch with worn carvings on the border. I tugged on the reigns and let our drought take a rest as I jumped down to investigate the carvings.  
Blocky, twisting snakes that coiled so tightly it left little to no negative space for the symbol embossed in the center. Star and crescent with an eye, crescent surrounding the star like a halo, the eye in the middle looking upwards at it. It evoked an emotion I couldn't quite pinpoint. Wistfulness? Reverence? A solemn sense of impending fate? Something overcame me and before I could register what exactly was happening the hatch was flung open, a torch and tinderbox in my hands.  
"Watch the carriage for me."  
With that I descended a steep channel of worn sandstone steps. The glyphs were worn and faded and the ceiling threatened to collapse with each step I took deeper into the hidden chamber. Somehow I managed to find my way into a familiar burial chamber, pots now tipped over and shattered, ancient viscera strewn about the floor, secret door behind the decorative seal unlocked and still wide open. But the sarcophagus in the center of it all was no longer empty. It held a singular occupant, adorned with gems and golden trinkets both ceremonial and aesthetical, his face was tightly wrapped but his features were evident, a disappointed frown creased his wrappings causing me to break a sweat into my own, most eerily of all his resting place had rotated since I was gone so that his feet faced me, and he was sitting up like an infirmary patient to stare me down.  
Just as I reached the bottom step of the steep, rickety staircase I heard a gravely, unpleasant voice, like someone had their larynx tanned and scraped like fresh hide.  
"I. Believe. You. Have. Something. Of. Mine." His breath was labored, sounded as if his lungs were the size of grapes and filled to the brim with sand.  
Shakily he moved an arm, pointing to my pocket with his ring finger; many other ones were missing or rotten to useless nubs of bone, barely dangling on by ancient sinew or lavish gold rings. I patted myself down only to prick my finger on the tiny brilliant cut ruby. I held it out silently to him.  
"Yes... Closer..." His breath got shorter and shorter, words getting fewer and further between as I approached with the ruby.  
"F... Freedom..." I saw a tiny hole in the side of his headpiece and slid the gem in with a quiet, yet satisfying click.  
"Ssllleeeeeep..." He cried out weakly as if being crushed as he fell back. Motionless, sleeping, gone. But somehow still present like watching a man in a coma.  
I spent the next half hour or so cleaning up the room, would have felt bad just leaving it like that. With the hidden door closed and the lid back on his resting place I headed back up the stairs, back into the desert. I'm not entirely sure what I've done, but I'm sure it was a favor to him.  
Resurfacing I found the sun was once again low in the sky sending cascades of purple and yellow on the horizon behind us, soon leaving us with nothing but the comet and the waning moon to light our path. That was the first time I saw him without his mask, he seemed pale and soft like some kind of cave creature, but sported features of elven nobility like prominent cheekbones and a weak chin that sported tiny patches of fuzz. Black hair flowed down to his shoulders in loose waves. We locked eyes for a moment before he scrambled to fit his head back into his cloth mask. He did manage but the eyeholes were slightly crooked.  
"You didn't see anything." he pointed to me with a hint of anger in his eyes like I should have knocked before leaving this ancient crypt.  
I blinked slowly and nodded. I hardly know him well enough to pry about that. Never even asked for his name and at this point it'd feel weird to have to ask. Silently I hopped back on the cart and jostled the reigns until its real driver woke up and started back on its way.  
"So what did you find in there?" he asked as we set off eastward once again, a gentle wind at our backs.  
"Just a far, long forgotten memory. Lets hope it stays like that."  
"Someone you knew?"  
"Not personally. Might have been an old student."  
"You teach?" he asked, tilting his head curiously.  
I tried my best to think back into those old memories I carried, not sure if they were truly mine or just some century-spanning dream. "I used to. Long time ago."  
"You don't seem that old."  
"Looks don't always tell a full story, but they can plant ideas. Take care that they don't grow into thorny weeds of prejudice." that line floated past my teeth like it was second nature.  
"Nevermind, you're teacher beyond a shadow of a doubt." he closed his eyes and leaned back in the cart's plush passenger seat. I looked back at him for an explanation as one of his eyes popped open to address me.  
"What? You're quoting Valetherite philosophy. You only really learn that stuff in colleges and libraries."  
I thought about it for a moment, let it sink in. Permeate my mind through its many nooks and filters. It felt familiar. Is this who I was? Or is it who he was, the bony old thing in that cave. Dreams and memories hardly need be distinguished since that ancient elf branded my eyes and started squatting in my mind, I can hardly remember what color my eyes were before.  
"It's only who I was, once in a far, long forgotten memory." I affirmed as I turned back around to face the road.  
Just peeking over the horizon was a tall, red tower, visible above all else with its blazing beacon fire which was dwarfed by the golden comet behind it. Drawing closer we were met with the clay-tiled roofs of several small, wooden buildings. The smokestacks showed signs of life, however little there was. The streets were megar, little dirt trails with lines of smooth river stones to keep carts off the footpaths. Every window we could see was covered in shutters or curtains, keeping any unwanted lights from entering or escaping.  
Last thing we saw before entering was a rotted old wooden sign that read "Frostharbour Population: 53", only the 3 was hastily scratched over with chalk and replaced with a somewhat uneven 0. The winds were silent, like somehow this one patch of desert coastline was lower than the rest despite being flat and level for the most part. Nobody emerged from their home to welcome us or even crack the door to see who it is.  
"Wonder why everybody's goin home so early." mumbled the voice from the back seat. "There's usually a few fishmongers out and about by this time, maybe some street food."  
I squinted my eyes, scanning the area for and movements... Nothing. Not even a sound save for the soft, crashing waves and the crackle of a distant lighthouse fire.  
"You think anybody's at the tavern?" I asked  
"I may not want to know, but it's worth checking out."  
That having been said I parked outside the most tavern-like building I could find on the main road and tied the draught next to the half-empty watering basin. Stepping up the creaky front stairs I grabbed a hold of the front door, it was unlocked, even cracked open just a little bit so the bolt didn't quite make it where it should have.  
Empty as the streets. There didn't seem to be any signs of conflict or anything, there was partially finished meals and full flagons of beer on the tables as if everybody simply got up and left.  
"Eerie."  
"Very."  
Just as we said that a strange figure cloaked in a stained, old army coat sprung up from behind the counter wielding a large, souped up splinter crossbow with a mess of gears and wires holding it together. He spoke in the deep, salty tone of a naval war veteran who'd been smoking since childhood.  
"Don't do anythin' you, or anybody within fourty-five degrees of you would regret."  
I put my hands in the air to show no ill intent as my companion did the same, only doing so as he slowly sidestepped behind me. Squinting in the dim light I saw him a little bit better, his face was scarred and ragged, as were his long, bony hands that held tightly to the stock of his weapon. When he spoke I could catch glimpses of his crooked, yellow teeth.  
"You don't look much like fishmen, how much they payin you?"  
"I assure you whatever's going on between you and the fishmongers is none of our business." I replied, registering fishmen as some kinda local slang.  
He lowered his piece and squinted at us in confusion with his left eye.  
"Fishmonger? ...You weren't followed, were ya's?" Just then we heard loud, wet footsteps coupled with the shaky, uneven breathing you get with an infected throat or a bad case of the chills. Without looking back I nodded, slowly and quietly sidling away from the doorframe.


	8. The Fish Problem

As we slowly slinked away from the door the old man took aim, ready to turn whatever emerged into a barely-living pincushion. His finger rested lightly on the trigger as its bipod lay on the polished wooden counter in front of him. In the silence he let out a loud whistle to draw the monster out, and like clockwork a nine foot, scaly humanoid figure burst through the door, only to be met with a rushing sea of wooden needles carving into its body like a tornado of blades.  
In a flash the creature lay flat on its back, a forest of spines sticking out in a thick belt along its chest and neck. From where I was standing I could see its face, it had the mouth of a carp and three oblong, black orbs for eyes placed vertically from where its nose should have been to the peak of its forehead. It had the physique of an adult man, but the limbs were lithe, lengthy and scaly and ended in extravagantly fanning fins. It bled a thin, dark blue into the porch's floorboards through its many, twitching wounds.  
"They's strong fishmen, but ain't too crafty." he said, loading a few pieces of a snapped broomstick into the top of his gun's clockwork topper and giving one of the gears a crank or two. "Tears up and eats anything it can get its slimy little fins on."  
I turned to my companion who started showing a look of intrigue, followed by realization, then panic before peeking his head out the door to see the blooded skeleton of our drought, picked clean of flesh and sinue with its largest bones snapped cleanly in half to hollow out the marrow inside. The skull lay at the bottom of the water trough, staining it red. I didn't know which was more concerning, the fact that just one beast could consume so much, so quickly, so thoroughly, and all with barely any sound, or that there were more of them waiting to find us.  
"What is that thing and how long has this been happening?" I asked, dashing over and ducking behind the counter with the strange man.  
"Don't quite know. They just started crawlin out of the sea when that comet showed up. Never did that any of the other times it flew by, though." he scratched his bushy, white beard, giving it some thought. "Don't think it lingered for quite so long last time either."  
The comet's golden glow still shone brightly on the world more than a day later and showing no signs of movement in the sky, frozen in place. But today it carried a more ominous energy, growing every second it lingered like a fungal infection taking root on the universe.  
"S'pose introductions are in order." The old man grabbed my hand and gave it a firm squeeze and shake. "The townsfolk all call me Ol' Rasmus. Though it hardly matters with so many of em missin."  
I stayed silent while my travelling companion returned from stacking chairs in front of the door. "My name's Vurle. I didn't get to say it earlier, got a little wrapped up in things."  
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Here's to hoping this doesn't count as blasphemy or anything.  
"I don't know if I have a name, but last person to address me called me Valeth."  
"Like that poet from way back when? Its as good a name as any. Anyway, glad to meet someone not covered in scales and wantin for flesh around here." He smiled, pouring himself a shot of aged whiskey from a bottle in a hidden compartment behind the bar. He looked down at the bottle and offered to pour me a shot.  
"No thanks, booze and archery don't really mix well." It was true, even if they weren't my memories I recalled many drunk archers managing to shoot their allies, sometimes even themselves.  
"Suit yourself." he knocked the drink back nonchalantly and shook his head, "So what're a couple a desert dwellers doin all the way out here? Trade doesn't route through here for another few months."   
"Passage." Vurle interrupted. "We're supposed to be going to Alma."  
"Oh, now thats a whole other can o' worms there. Sea's rough today and shes lookin like she won't calm down. Plus I'm not too keen on leavin my town like this, overrun with fishmen and all." I dug through my pockets and showed him the little charm the count gave to me, his reaction was unexpected, but not unwelcome. He closed his eyes somberly and nodded. "Well if you're with him... I suppose that gives us a choice. We can either hunt 'em all down or steal Tariahel's old cruiser and set sail. Personally, I could go for either so its up to you two."  
I mulled it over for a little bit, turning the dainty silver chain of the count's charm in my hands. I did have a date with destiny, so to speak. But what if there was someone else here? What if they're holed up like Rasmus but don't have access to a weaponized wood chipper? Do we really stand a chance in hell against massive flesh-eating deep creatures that take THAT much to kill? The more I thought on it the more making a mad dash to the harbour sounded like a good idea, but It'd weigh heavy on my heart if I let more honest people be slaughtered like cornered boar.  
I didn't know how much time I had to reach Alma, nor did I know what had to be done when I got there. All I knew was that it was waiting. For me. For me and the comet. I turned to my companion to ask what he thought of the situation.  
"Vurle?"  
"I'd have no shame fleeing. Doesn't seem like there's much town left to save." he quickly peeked over the bar to the barricaded front door "Besides, who would find out? By the time anyone else comes to this shanty town these... creatures will have cleared out. No food, no fish."  
I nodded, seems its settled. All we needed was a good plan. Maybe a diversion or a disguise? Perhaps we could find a secret passage in the tavern that leads to the harbor like a drainage pipe. Before I could think of something to say to organize I'd turn back to find both Rasmus and his splinter gun missing along with a few bottles of whiskey and gin. The front door was wide open.  
Maybe I should have expected this from a whiskey-filled war veteran but we'd only just met. I figure the easiest way through town now is following the trail of fish blood and shattered scales. From a safe distance, of course. After all, whiskey and archery don't mix.  
Vurle and I tiptoed to the open door and I took a peek outside, the only lights were coming from the ever-present comet and the lighthouse due just east. The street smelled of ash, wood chips and fish guts. I slowly closed the door and locked it behind me. I'm sure he'll be fine.  
"Guess we're going for the stealthy way out." I said, scanning the room for anything at all that could be helpful. As I paced the room, scanning the walls for suspicious cabinets and looking behind paintings I heard a creaking noise from beneath Vurle's feet. Obviously he heard it too and began making the noise over and over until noticing a small island where the floorboards were just slightly uneven. Bingo.  
I shooed him aside and took out my dagger, using the tip of the blade to loosen the boards which were swollen from spending years in a seaside town. As soon as it got loose enough the door flung open as if it were loaded with taught springs and gale force winds. The distinct smell of salt and soil emanated forth through the dark, narrow passage. Leaning an ear down I heard nothing but an occasional drip-drop echo from much deeper than we'd need to go for this trip. At least I hope so, swimming underground isn't exactly an appealing idea.  
"What is with you and caves?" Vurle asked before stealing one of the tavern's oil lamps off the wall along with a few bottles of expensive booze and lowering himself down into the small tunnel.  
"I think I used to live in one?" I replied, crouching down and following suit, heading due east through the limestone.  
"What, like a hermitage thing or was it a real house?"  
"It was... Spartan. But I got by for a good while. In fact I lost track of my age a few years ago."  
"Can I get a rough estimate? Haven't been able to gauge by your face."  
"About..." I started counting back, then thinking back to find the last year I could recall.  
The light from the oil lamp faded from my eyes and I was once again alone, this time in the high mountains illuminated only by starlight and the full moon, the snow was up to my knees but I did not feel the cold. Only the pressure of the slush against my leathers. The stars were much different than before, constellations were misshapen and some stars were absent altogether while new ones filled voids where there was nothing. My hands were cupped around something, I could feel its panicked flutters against my hands. I opened them to see a large moth the size of a fully grown apple flutter into the night sky. The vision faded and I was back in the salt tunnel watching as a common moth fluttered into the open panel of the oil lamp, turning itself into a pile of embers in under a second.  
"I don't think numbers that high have names..."  
Vurle turned back for a moment and shot me a smirk through his head-wraps. "Suppose you're just really well preserved, then? Most ancient corpses don't speak with your kind of diction."  
"Do I look dead to you?"  
"The more carefully prepped undead rarely look like they're rotting on the outside. But you can tell. The smell on their breath, their shiny skin, their stiff joints." he took a good long look into my eyes. "If you're as old as you say you must be something more than that."  
I just nodded silently, following him deeper into the windy caverns. We didn't talk for about five or ten minutes until we heard a loud, distinct thud from above, followed by two strips of small wooden spikes protruding from the ceiling, segmented by the source of the sound.  
"Think we're close?" he asked me, ripe with sarcasm. I took my dagger out and pushed it gently into the dirt. What a wonder these tunnels never collapsed before.  
"MOLEMEN?" shrieked a familiar voice from above as we heard gears grinding and wood being chewed by metal jaws.  
Just before he pulled the trigger the ground where the monster once stood fell through, setting us eye to eye with Ol' Rasmus.  
"Oh, its only you vagrants. Hop on up you're just at the docks." he seemed inappropriately disappointed as he lowered his splinter gun and offered a hand up for Vurle, since he was a few heads shorter than I and was completely engulfed by the tunnel.  
The sound of the waves crashing was extremely close and embers fell from the lighthouse onto the ground, staining the sand with patches of light grey. I tilted my head upwards to see the tall, painted tower of the lighthouse being consumed by flames from the inside, plumes of smoke and fire burst from the barred windows as the top burned wildly like a giant prayer candle. But no gods would speak to the city, for there was nobody to listen to. Nobody but the droll of waves and the crackle of flames.  
With both of us on solid ground it was time to flee from this dismal situation. Rasmus led us to a small sailing ship, just big enough for the sea between islands, but under bigger waves it would be crushed like glass. Rasmus hoisted the anchor up without assistance and cut the docking rope to make a swift getaway. For an old man he was strong, still knew how to sail the seas. But he was a lover of danger and by his many scars you could tell he thought he was invincible. But you wouldn't want to try and prove him wrong. As we sailed away into the crashing waves with the old naval man at the helm all we could do was watch as the lighthouse collapsed as its structure beams burned away, fire spreading through the town as countless empty canals broke open like sinkholes running a complex network through the ruined town's foundation, collapsing even the biggest buildings into rubble to serve as tinder for the great blaze.  
"Man, we could have died in there."  
"What secrets those tunnels could have held if we stayed." I said before Vurle looked at me in annoyance.  
"You're going to walk straight into the hollow, aren't you?"


	9. Sea Sojurn

As we crashed into wave after wave, slicing through them like a cleaver I sat on the stern of the ship and watched smoke billow from what was once a quaint little port town. Now a monster-infested smouldering pile of embers. I crossed my arms and leaned across the railings as the hot desert winds blew us south-southeast into the sea. Rasmus stood behind me at the helm while Vurle took a nap in the crow's nest around fifteen feet above us. I turned around to watch Rasmus but he seemed too lost in his own thoughts to take note of me.  
I walked over and leaned against the mast next to him.  
"Was it home for you?"  
He closed his eyes wryly and shook his head.   
Not wanting to talk about it further he took the liberty of changing the subject for me.  
"Why're y'all still wearin' those head-wraps? Can't imagine its comfortable in this weather." He was right. These bandages stuck to my head like wet paper in this humidity, the salt coming close to stinging my eyes on the regular. What's the harm in going without if it's just us?  
"Well I can't speak for my friend up there but I just forgot I had them on." I said while unclipping and unwrapping the bandages around my head. Just as I peeled the last of it off my face to expose my skin to the cool seabreeze Rasmus shot me a strange glance, like someone had just tried and failed to insult him on a deep emotional level.  
"You, uh... You sure you wanna walk around with all that on your eyes?" He puzzled.  
"I... don't have much of a choice. It's kinda just on there?"  
Rasmus furrowed his brow, letting go of the ship's helm to lick his thumb and give the outermost part of my scar a scrape. It wasn't enough to pop it, and it didn't hurt. It only tingled to feel the fluid within the strange wound shift around like water in a bonded leather canteen.  
"S'just like the stars... You got the genuine article." he mused  
"What do you mean by that?"  
"Star-scars. Only happens when you get too close to some mighty powerful magics. You wear some kinda enchanted blindfold before?"  
"No, got it from the same place I got all these foggy memories. Deep down in some cave near Bal Sotha there's a big drow elf with this stuff all over his body. Think he saved me from some cave gases." Just as I finished my short anecdote I caught something moving on the distant horizon, leaving a noticeable wake among the sea’s usual turbulence. “Do you see that?” he turned around passively and squinted towards the bump in the surf.  
“Land?” he whispered to himself before taking a little chunk of wood from a pouch hanging off his shoulder and chucking it, landing it into the crow’s nest and right on Vurle’s head. “WAKE UP AND DO YOUR DUTY.”  
Vurle got up in a daze, rubbing the impact site before grabbing a telescope and examining the now obvious grey lump in the distance. He seemed perplexed by its sight, as if it were something he’d never thought he'd see with his own eyes.  
“I'm… Not sure what I'm looking at.” He yelled back down at us as the ship drew ever closer to it. Its captain seemingly in a trance as he headed straight for it.  
“Uh… cap? You gonna go around it?” I asked, no response.  
“Captain Rasmus?” His eyes were fixated on the dark grey lump that was slowly rising out of the water, revealing two sets of membranous nets at either side of its domed crest. Judging by the waves it was making it was around thirty seconds away from a direct collision. About twenty-five from the point of no return where steering would do no good.  
I tried to steer the wheel myself but it wouldn't budge, like it was an old gear rusted in place by time. Twenty seconds. I tried pushing Rasmus himself but he wouldn't budge an inch. It was surprising how sturdy he was at such an old age. Fifteen seconds. Vurle was too busy panicking to do something useful. I screamed at the top of my lungs to get his attention but it might as well have been a whisper in a windstorm with all the crashing waves knocking pieces of the bow in. Ten seconds. I could see its eyes now. Five seconds. They looked just like mine. Impact was inevitable as the massive creature shut its eyes tightly and braced itself. The hull split itself apart with a mighty crunch as if it were made of wax paper.  
Mighty waves thrashed the pieces back and forth as the giant beast’s hand crested out of the water to hold its head in pain. We barely made a scratch on it. We were but a falling branch on this creature's day. But to us this was the end of the line. I grabbed hold of the largest shard of wood i could find and held on while I saw Vurle drifting in the severed crow's nest, possibly out cold. Or worse. The surf was too rough to swim through. The sky grew darker as wave after wave buffeted my skull against the broken board. Slowly I lost the will to keep my eyes open, and slipped into a dream. Stinging of salt.


	10. Stranded

I awoke hours later. Bruised, battered, and entangled by algae and kelp. My hair tangled into sandy mats and full of tiny bugs, all crawling and writhing. I open my eyes to find my hunter's pack and head bandages gone, all that remained were my sea-dredged clothes and polished hunting knife which stood half-buried among the shore's reeds. I crawled my way over to it, catching a glimpse of my face in the now dull and hazy reflection.  
The curse had grown.  
My nose was now worn and flat against the bone of my skull and my left cheek was translucent like a bubble, showing the veins and capillaries against my teeth for the world to see. Worse yet it all still had that purple tinge to it, only this time it was much more deep and rich like the robes of an emperor. Still with shining silver powder flowing through like a second blood stream.  
Out from behind the knife I saw a little pit in the otherwise smooth sand. My stomach growled. It felt as if I hadn't eaten in days. I shove my hand directly into the pit like it was a trowel and feel it hit something hard and chitinous. I pull it up hurriedly like a fresh radish and greet the eyes of a large blue crab. It snapped and pinched with its claws in self defense as it saw my hungry eyes. I couldn't help but feel sorry for what I was about to do. I took the knife back from the sand and grabbed it by its now dull blade, wielding it now like a hide-wrapped hammer. Dinner was bland, but at least I ate. Part of me knows I've done something like this before while lost in the forest, and the rest of me is disgusted, only hoping that the poor animal has the capacity to feel so it could forgive me.  
A few hours passed, I took some time to crush the sea mites and shear off some of the matted parts of my hair. The island was small, but dense with trees. Few of them bore fruit and even fewer were ripe. Maybe I could use one of the branches for spear fishing like in those stories.  
A few hours passed, neither making the spear or throwing the spear were as easy as the story would have me believe. The shimmer of the water makes aiming impossible and the improvised spear flies nothing like a javelin, snapping like a twig as I tossed it into the waves. Surviving off of uncooked crabs can't be healthy but it seems like what's going to happen.  
Eureka! Hidden among the trees I found a tidepool with fresh kelp and a few small snappers tangled within. Life is good.  
Life is bad again, I just remembered what causes tidepools. The moon rises with the tide and soaks any timber I would have planned on using for fire. The trees are strong and wildly shaped, but have a coating of slick, green algae along the trunk. I managed to use a few barnacles as footholds but it only got me just above the crest of the waves. I managed to pull up the kelp into a ball with a loose branch but was helpless to do anything as I watched all the little snappers either float into the distance or disappear into the cruel, crashing sea. With only a few branches supporting me and nothing else to do I drifted off to a restless, anxious sleep.  
My eyes squint open to the feeling of dry sand, blasting my uncovered, disease ridden face. I looked around to see I was in a desert, perched in a dead tree atop a vast, smooth dune. The only thing lighting the sky was the comet, slowly making its way to a distant, craggy mountain. Like home but with no trees to cover it and no mesa to build upon. They lined up so perfectly from my perspective. Ninety degrees exactly from the comet's tangent to the ground. It was as if the mountain were prepared to split the comet in half. One could lose themselves in such perfection.  
The impact was not quite so perfect. The fallen star tore through the peak like it was being dropped on a paper cone from twenty feet up. The space rock crashed with such force that a wall of sound tore over the desert, sending ripples through the delicate surface of the sand. Just as a wall of fire and hot glass caught up with me and my tree I woke up, still feeling the phantom sting of its impact on my skin. The moon was high and the waves crashed against the tree's trunk, sending a constant salty mist up my way.  
In the distance I could spot the amorphous forms of Alma's ash clouds spilling into the sea, glowing embers hissing and mixing with steam to grow bigger, yet bigger until dispersing into the sky or falling into the waves. Longingly, I reach my hand out to it, but as if to react to me a gentle sea breeze pushed it that much further away.  
Just as I was about to close my eyes once more and hope for a premonition-free sleep I felt a heavy thump against my tree accompanied by the soft whisper of a young child, barely audible over the waves.  
“Hello?”  
Curious, I peered down to its source and saw a soft glint of red, seeming to stare back at me.  
“Oh, Hello! What are you doing out here?”  
Startled, I looked down while attempting to scramble further up my flooding perch. There's something beneath the waves and it speaks the common tongue? Why would I even remotely trust that after what happened back in Frostharbour? As I climb up I looked down to see a slimy webbed hand burst from the water and grip onto the trunk of the tree.  
“Wait! Come back!” The voice pleaded, as a slimy bump the size of a common turkey emerged from the water and started climbing up the trunk with it's primitive-looking, sticky limbs. It made sound without moving its mouth, speaking instead from two holes on either side of it's cheeks. It had a strange optical structure that seemed to imply either three cone shaped eyes all arranged in a vertical row like a set of nails driven into a board, or simply one big eye with three slat-like eyelids. It's body was a pale white and shaped like a developing frog, not quite ready to leave the water, but certainly able to do so.  
“We saw you off the coast, crashing into the great elder.”

I kept my distance, cautiously far from this strange larvae. It did happen to bear a great resemblance to the watery titan we crashed into, but it seemed much more outwardly naive, more safe, and much less ravenous than the ones from the coast of Frostharbour. But it moved like a quadruped with the face of another animal loosely affixed over its own.  
“Do not be afraid. My appetite is yet to develop, yet my mind hungers to know about you. How did such frail creatures come to live in our world?”  
“Your world?”  
“We were here long before you walked on land, and will persist long after. Your saints and gods sleep once again so our time has come to rise.”  
Getting a closer look at the creature in motion I saw that it's mouth didn't move when speaking, but it did make sound. Possibly emanating from the sides of its face out of small, shallow pits.  
“What are you... things?”  
“We are as civil and cultured as your philistinic collectives, if not moreso. “Things” is not a way to refer to the inhabitants of the new world.”  
It stares at me silently for a moment, as if waiting for me to interject in defense or bend and apologize.  
“I wish I had the speaking mouths to express the name which our people refer to themselves, but alas, I am but a child of one.”  
“Wait what?”  
“Your kind mature much more slowly than we, the greatest adult minds being like that of our idiot monthlings.”  
I really didn't know how to respond to this, should I be insulted? Afraid? Jealous? I'm being talked down to by a one year old fish with legs. There's no precedent for how I should feel in this situation. Before I could open my mouth to attempt to respond I heard the distant sound of a naval barrage.  
“Oh no.”  
Those were the last words I heard from it before it seemingly disappeared from vision, leaving behind four sets of claw marks and a blue, vile-smelling mist. Several other splashes led up and followed this, along with the crunch of a ball of solid iron crashing through the trunk of the tree adjacent to mine. Peeking out ever so slightly from the branches I saw a ship, much more grandiose than the one Rasmus commandeered for us, cannons smoking and crew staring me down, hanging off the railings like children watching farm animals. I give them a shaky thumbs up and the one with the eyepieces relays it to the crew, sending them into a frenzy of revelry.


End file.
